Pop Rocks!
by Metropolis Kid
Summary: It seems that the sky people DO have ONE thing the Na'vi want after all - magic rocks that create hundreds of delightful explosions in your mouth. Warning, this fic is very silly and NOT to be taken seriously. One-Shot. Friendship fic - No slash!


**Pop Rocks!**

**Disclaimer: **I don't own any material contained within this story. All copyrighted content remains the property of the person, people, or organization that holds the copyright. This story is solely for fun.

**AN:** PLEASE don't take this seriously.

* * *

Norm Spellman considered himself to be a lucky man. After all, not only was he one of only a handful of humans allowed to stay on Pandora after the war. But he was the best friend of Jake Sully, the human turned Na'vi turned planetary savior! But though he considered himself lucky for all of that, it was in a vague, sort of existential sense. But this latest find truly made him feel like he had the luck of his Irish ancestors, for there in the commissary of the human base, just as they were preparing to leave it for last time, what should Norm stumble across but a whole crate of his absolute favorite candy – Pop Rocks!

A cheshire grin split the man's face as he quickly flipped his way through the individual packets of those sweet, carbonated candies and approximated just how many he'd stumbled across: over a thousand packets! Truly, this was a red letter day. The man quickly closed up the box and added it to the large cart of salvage he'd been collecting from different areas of the base, placing this new, precious cargo right on top of the five industrial sized canisters of compressed oxygen and beside the bulky filtration system capable of extracting more safe air from Pandora's atmosphere.

Norm then took stock of the cart and decided that it was getting too full. He still needed a small solar generator to keep the rest of his tech powered after all. So, he took out two of the canisters and the Nintendo and left them there, then he headed off in search of a generator.

* * *

Several hours later Norm had managed to set himself up with what he considered to be a fairly decent bachelor pad... all things considered. He had his air supply taken care of, a beenbag chair (some things never went _completely_ out of style) a projector to watch movies on, a data chip containing over five thousand hours worth of new and classic shows and movies, the newest Xbox (complete with Halo 52 and Mass Effect 50 games), an I-pod Think, the solar generator to keep it all powered – without causing any harm to Pandora's delicate and sacred environment – and, best of all, a full crate of Pop Rocks!

Norm cracked one of the packets open as he popped in the data chip and selected a classic, though short lived, Sci-Fi show to watch. He was done his first packet and into his second before the theme song even started. "Take my love. Take my land. Take me where I cannot stand. I don't care. I'm still free. You can't take the skies from me."

It was then that Jake Sully, perhaps attracted by the unusual (for Pandora anyway) music, happened to come by. He raised a razor thin eyebrow at his friend. "I thought you wanted to escape away from all this human clutter?"

Norm looked up. "Escape the capitalistic, anti-environmental, self destructive culture humanity has developed? Yes. Leave behind the harmless, recreational technology and other contributions like Xbox and Pop Rocks? Never!"

"Pop Rocks?" Jake questioned. He was familiar with all the video game systems and had been since he'd lost the use of his legs. They'd offered him a chance to escape into other worlds – much like the Avatar system did later on. In fact they were part of the reason he'd adapted to the system so quickly, without any prior training. Or at least Jake had _thought_ he was familiar with all the game systems. But he'd never heard of this 'Pop Rocks' one before.

"Yeah, Pop Rocks," Norm replied and stretched out the packet in his hand. "You know, the carbonated candy?"

"Oh..." Jake replied.

"Wait, you've never had Pop Rocks?"

"Can't say I have."

Norm looked shocked. How could his best friend have never tried the candy that had been his absolute favorite since childhood? Clearly this was an issue that had to be rectified – immediately. Norm pushed his hand out a little further. "Try some; you've got no idea what you're missing."

Jake's left nostril scrunched up as he sniffed the 'alien' food. But the look on his friend's face was nearly pleading. So, Jake stuck two fingers into the pouch, extracted a pinch of the purple candy and tentatively dropped it into his mouth.

His eyes went wide. Jake had never been much for carbonization in his drinks, feeling like it somehow made them less thirst quenching. But apparently carbonation and candy went together like a Na'vi and a Banshee.

"Good huh?" Norm asked, a proud grin upon his face.

"Uh, yeah... Say, do you think I could have a pack?"

Norm looked over at his stash. He had over a thousand packets. The man supposed he could spare at least one for his best friend. He reached over, grabbed a pack and tossed it to the ten foot tall, blue cat.

"Thanks."

"No problem. Hey, wait, where are you going?"

"To see Neytiri... She's gotta try this."

And with that Jake was gone and Norm went back to watching his show.

"You wanna tell me why there's a statue of you here lookin' like I owe him something?"

"Wishin' I could, Captain."

* * *

It took Jake approximately an hour to locate his mate. He finally found her at the edge of the floating island. She was dismounting from her Banshee when Jake caught sight of her, and it occurred to him why he'd had such trouble tracking her down.

Jake licked his finger, stuck it into the open Pop Rocks' pouch and pulled it back out. Then he closed his other hand around the bag, hiding it from view. He was certain Neytiri would enjoy the candy as much as he did. But she might refuse to try it at all if she knew where it had come from. And really, after all those aliens had done to her people, who could blame her?

Neytiri smiled as she saw her mate approaching. "I see you, Jakesully," she greeted in Na'vi.

Jake smiled back. Then he held up his finger. "Here, you've gotta try this," he responded, also in Na'vi.

Neytiri sniffed the foreign compound. "What is it?" she asked with a furled brow.

"It's good," Jake replied evasively.

Neytiri eyed him strangely.

"Come on, trust me."

The female's eyes went back down to her mate's finger, and she took it into her mouth, rather sensuously as her tongue moved over the digit, lapping at the alien, mineral like substance. Her eyes too went wide at the taste an sensation. "Oh, oh my?" she said, pulling her mouth away from her mate's finger. "It's like a hundred tiny explosions in my mouth! What is this stuff?"

"Pop Rocks." Jake opened up his hand and showed the candy packet to his mate.

* * *

Norm awoke the next morning only to find that his entire stash of Pop Rocks had vanished. Perplexed and near frantic he rushed out of the small alcove that had become his quarters... only to find every single Na'vi in the village gripping a packet of Pop Rocks. "I... What the? Thieves! Vultures! Those are mine; give them back!" Norm shouted, still half asleep and overcome by emotion. He tried to pull one the the packets out of the nearest Na'vi's hand. However, when the ten foot tall, powerfully built alien bent down and hissed at him, the scientist came to his senses and released his grip.

He continued to stare, though, a heart broken expression plain upon his face. "H-How did this happen."

"Yeah... sorry, Buddy" a voice apologized from somewhere to Norm's right replied. "I'm afraid that when Neytiri and I 'uploaded' last night the rest of the tribe found out about your stash of Pop Rocks, and... well, they're hooked."

"You!" one of the Na'vi exclaimed in accented English as he grabbed the human under his arms and lifted him from the floor. "More, I want more," he growled.

"There... There isn't any more. You blue cats ate it all!" Norm yelled in reply.

And at this all eyes suddenly turned to him.

"What do you mean there's no more?"

"Make more."

"I can't."

"What? Why?"

"Well for one thing I don't know how. It's a secret formula. And even if I did know it, you probably don't have the same ingredients here on Pandora."

Suddenly the human was dropped like a sack of potatoes as all the Na'vi began chattering like monkeys about the lack of Pop Rocks.

Norm used this opportunity to sneak back to his alcove. The natives were actually, finally showing an interest in some small part of human culture – oh, they had _great_ timing. Who knew what they might develop a taste for next? He had to hide the rest of his loot before they took it all away... and started fragging each other in Halo all night long!

* * *

Meanwhile the Na'vi had started an impromptu public forum as they continued to discuss this apparently dire Pop Rock shortage.

"Well, I don't like it anymore than you do. But what can we do about it? Only the Sky People have the Pop Rocks."

"Weren't they interested in some rock on our planet too? Maybe we could trade them?" one of the Na'vi, a child who'd been too young to fight in the recent war and didn't really understand what it was all about, suggested.

This suggestion earned the child scornful looks from several members of the tribe. That was, until 'JakeSully' interjected. "That... could work – if we limited them to one, unarmed transport ship and restricted them to the landing zone at the deserted RDA base. If we gathered small deposits of Unobtanium ourselves and just traded with the transport ship we could, theoretically, prevent any sort of environmental disaster."

"And you think the Sky People would agree to this?" Neytiri asked.

"If we don't let them set up any kind of a base, just land and swap cargo, I don't see what choice they'd have. If they tried anything, we wouldn't have any trouble kicking them out and severing ties once more, and they wouldn't want to risk that. From what I was told the Unobtanium is incredibly valuable, and a little is better than none at all."

* * *

A month later the board of directors for the RDA corporation sat around their conference table, staring at the only transmission from Pandora since they'd been forced to pull their people from the planet. It simply read: "Will trade Unobtanium for Pop Rocks."

No one knew what to make of it.

* * *

Well, I hope you got a laugh or two out of this silly one-shot. Please drop me a review and let me know what you thought. Thanks. ;)

Have a good day, and God bless.

Metropolis Kid.


End file.
